


No One Knows You Like I Do

by TheGreatCatsby



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Kougino - Freeform, M/M, slightly au but not really, some character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 10:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5925490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreatCatsby/pseuds/TheGreatCatsby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kougami has always been there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One Knows You Like I Do

**Author's Note:**

> This is like a very slight AU. Like just one thing changed, and if you could discount that thing it could be canon compliant. Anyway, enjoy!

Nobuchika doesn't talk about his home life. They walk together, to and from school, every day, and it's never mentioned. He will talk about anything else, but not that. Kougami has seen where Nobuchika lives. It's a nice home, larger than Kougami's own, and once he caught a glimpse of his mother, a willowy woman with black hair like Nobuchika's and a lovely smile.

He's eight.

One day Nobuchika doesn't come into school, and he doesn't send a message to Kougami telling him not to wait. Kougami stands in front of Nobuchika's house for half an hour in the cold before deciding to walk to school alone. He sends four messages in that time. By the end of the day, all four messages are unread and unanswered.

There are more questions.

By the end of the day, rumors swirl around the school about a huge accident within the Public Safety Bureau. A case gone wrong, several detectives injured, and the worst part: new latent criminals. Whispers about who they might be. The name Masaoka floats around.

Nobuchika.

He reappears in front of his house three days later, after three days of Kougami waiting for him every morning. He looks pale, guarded somehow, and he doesn't smile. Kougami is young, but he knows enough not to ask. It's not something that can be explained during their short walk.

He doesn't know all the answers, but he steps in when several kids call Nobuchika a dirty latent criminal. He pushes them away, doesn't really care what the truth is, only cares that Nobuchika has bruises on his face and tears in his eyes.

Kougami wipes those tears away and Nobuchika whispers, “he promised he wouldn't get hurt.”

“What happened?” Kougami asks.

“He was hurt. Th-they think he m-might be a latent criminal.”

“He'll get better,” Kougami says. “He'll come back.”

Nobuchika nods. “He'll come back. He promised.”

*

He doesn't come back.

It takes a month, and Nobuchika finds out just as spring arrives. He tells Kougami during lunch as they sit underneath one of the trees. Kougami reads, Nobuchika picks at the dead grass.

“He can't come out in public again,” he says.

“I'm sorry,” Kougami says.

Nobuchika's breath hitches, and Kougami winces as he hears his friend sob. He's never seen Nobuchika cry like this, and he pulls the smaller boy close to him, dropping his book onto the grass, and holds him, stroking his hair until lunch is over.

*

“I'm changing my name.” Nobuchika is fifteen, and he's made it his life's goal to be top of the class. Which would be achievable, if Kougami weren't standing in his way at every turn.

It's a friendly rivalry. Of course it is. Everyone gives a wide berth to the two of them, the kid of a latent criminal and the boy who would stand by him, risking his own psycho-pass for a silly childhood friendship.

Right now, instead of spending their lunch outside, sitting in the grass enjoying the sun, they're in the library. Nobuchika had said that the sun is distracting, and Kougami doesn't believe him. The other kids are distracting. He'd started retreating into the library shortly after his father left.

He also started wearing glasses.

They suit him, even though Nobuchika's never had eye problems before. But Kougami doesn't mention it. To each their own. Nobuchika says that Kougami exercises too much, but has never stopped him, so Kougami won't try to take away his glasses. (He isn't above teasing.)

Now, they're twenty minutes into a lunch study period and Kougami jerks his head up from his book. A book for pleasure—he barely needs to study to make perfect grades, something that Nobuchika finds infuriating.

“What?”

“My last name,” Nobuchika clarifies.

“Because of your dad?” Kougami asks.

Nobuchika narrows his eyes. “No. My mother is sick. She loved my grandmother. My grandmother is dead, and I don't want mom to feel like...I don't know. I want to honor her family, somehow. I think she'll like it.”

“What is it?” Kougami asks.

“What is what?”

“The name.”

“Oh. Ginoza,” Nobuchika says softly.

“Ginoza,” Kougami repeats, and it sounds good. Like the glasses, it suits him, somehow.

“I just thought you should know,” Nobuchika says, lowering his gaze to his books.

“Thanks,” Kougami says. “It's nice. Gino.”

“What?”

“Gino for short.”

*

“Coward,” Ginoza spits. He's shaking like a leaf. Kougami places a large hand on his shoulder, glances around to make sure no one else is near. The few people at the funeral had dispersed quickly. Perhaps because Ginoza had darted away as soon as the funeral ceremony ended, making for the edge of the cemetery park.

Only Kougami had followed.

“I'm sorry,” he says now.

“He should have made every effort to come,” Ginoza snarls. “I know he can leave. I know he's allowed to go out with an Inspector. I guess now that mom's gone he has nothing worth seeing in this world.”

“That's not true,” Kougami says. “Maybe something came up.”

Ginoza shakes his head. Kougami takes out a pack of cigarettes. “Don't,” Ginoza says.

“Want one?”

Ginoza snatches the pack from Kougami's hands, crushes it in his own. He remains still, for a moment, before shakily trying to fish out a cigarette.

Kougami helps him. Ginoza's hands shake too much to light the cigarette, so Kougami does it for him. Ginoza inhales deeply, as if trying to smother himself with the smoke. Kougami lights one for himself, hopes that this will ease Ginoza's anger.

“I hate him,” Ginoza says, after a few moments.

“That's not true,” Kougami says.

“He left,” Ginoza snaps, whirling around to glare at Kougami. “He left me and her and didn't even bother to try to help when she was sick. And now she's gone. And I'm alone.”

“You're not alone.”

Ginoza tries to take another drag from his cigarette, but his breath hitches, and his hand jerks, and the cigarette falls to the ground. Ginoza turns away, makes a choking noise, and brings his hands up to cover his mouth.

“Gino,” Kougami murmurs, stepping forward.

Ginoza makes a strange, strangled noise.

“Gino?”

“They left,” Ginoza chokes, doubling over. “They both left me. I can't be alone.”

Kougami drops his own cigarette, wraps his arms around Ginoza, lowers them both to sit on the grass. Ginoza turns towards him, clutching Kougami's jacket, knuckles turned white and body wracked with sobs.

“It's okay,” Kougami tells him. “I'm here. I'm here.”

He doesn't let go.

*

“If you go to the other side, if you let this case consume you, I won't have you any more.”

“I'll still be here, Gino.”

“That's a lie. That's how I lost him.”

“I'm not like him. You'll still see me. We can still be what we are.”

“Everything changes. You won't be the same. We can't be what we are. Not if you do this. Do not go after Sasayama on your own.”

“I have to.”

*

Maybe Ginoza was right. Maybe not. Kougami isn't the same person now that he's a latent criminal. But maybe this is his true self.

All they do is argue. Ginoza is forced to hold him at gunpoint, and that's when Kougami knows he has to leave. For both their sakes. It's the best option. He thinks Ginoza will forgive him for that.

It's not the same as his father, as his mother, Kougami thinks. He's doing this for a good reason. He's doing this so that Ginoza and the others will be safe. It isn't selfish. This isn't death and this isn't out of a lack of caring. And if he can, he will come back.

*

The explosion, the scream, and Kougami stares into the face of his childhood friend, his lover, his boss, all of these things at once. He's never seen him like this.

He's seen Ginoza cry twice. First as a little boy, when his father left. Then at his mother's funeral. Both times, he didn't look as devastated as he looks now, as he kneels over his father's mutilated body, stares up at Kougami.

Begging him.

And maybe he looks worse because the years have shown him that promises aren't kept, that people don't stay, not for him, that his most irrational fears are his harshest realities. His face is like an open wound, raw and bleeding. Kougami wants to look away. But for a moment, he's stuck.

And even as he's struck by Ginoza's pain, he can hear one part of his mind urging him forward, urging him away, urging him towards Makishima. He knows Ginoza was right. _This is how he loses me._

He stares at Ginoza and remembers the little boy crying because his father left, remembers the young man sobbing over his mother's death, remembers the promise made both times, and countless other times in the dead of night, whispered in the bedroom as they lay side by side.

Kougami remembers, and then he breaks that promise, and runs. 


End file.
